Blefuscu by the Bay

I just spent another three days reading Bay Area periodicals. As newspapers, the major San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland publications are approximately as useful as the local neighborhood throwaways and any fifteen minutes of radio reportage. Seriously.

Compared to the S.F. Chronicle, the L.A. TIMES has pretty drab writing but it at least has coverage.

It can be said that a newspaper, which is a local product, is a reflector of its locale. The Bay Areas newspapers are cute and provincial. Like the Bay Area itself. Referring to San Francisco as The City is a joke. It is mainly a tourist attraction, right up there with Disneyland and Venice, Italy.

Today's humorous example of that xenophobic provincialism is the ejection of California's pre-eminent Italian, Tommy Lasorda, as Grand Marshall of San Francisco's Italian Heritage Day Parade. San Francisco Supervisor Michela Aliota-Pier called Lasorda "San Francisco's Enemy No 1". How about that! What a safe little enclave this little Lilliput is. Alioto-Pier's resolution also called Dodger fans "boastful and smug." Qualities not evident in Frisco residents.

A late report fron the Chonicle concludes, "The parade briefly toyed with the idea of having an empty car for the grand marshal. Instead, however, it will honor another prominent Italian American, Joe Garbarino, from Marin Sanitary Service for his work in garbage recycling."

Couldn't they get Tony Soprano?